After The Storm
by Shade Embry
Summary: On what would have been his birthday, George Mason is not left alone, even if he left them.


After The Storm

Summary: On what would have been his birthday, George Mason is not left alone, even if he left them.

Spoilers: Day 2 – "10:00 PM-11:00 PM".

Standard disclaimers apply.

Original Character Bio: Liz Rycoff, after surviving the first two days, no longer works at CTU. Instead, she took over Mason's position after he died, in order to protect CTU from another annoying bureaucratic panic, but she's not really qualified. Still, she soldiers on. Liz was close friends with Mason, but now all she really has left is Jack. The two of them started a relationship about a year after Day 2, but it's kind of going slowly. She also had a failed non-relationship of sorts with Tony between Day 1 and Day 2, and Tony's intervention made Liz realize that in trying to save everyone, she ended up getting lost.

Dedication: Xander Berkeley is one of the greatest living actors and a wonderful man. It really *is* his birthday today (December 6), so I thought in honor of that occasion, I would whip up a Mason remembrance. I hope it's good enough for his taste.

Continuity: Takes place after Day 2, just after my own "Sweet Misery."

Recommended Listening: "End Game" by Anthony Stewart Head, one of the most bittersweet mourning songs ever.

She woke up in the middle of the night to find a sudden flush of water pressing behind her eyes and her body gone cold. He shifted against her, turning over to face her in one fluid motion, the concern etched into his piercing gaze. "Liz? You okay?" he said, his voice an unconvinced whisper as she found herself suppressing a shudder that threatened to rear itself.

"I don't know, Jack," she said, listening to her voice splinter and break. On instinct she stopped, sinking her teeth into her lower lip, forcing out a breath from lungs that suddenly burned. He pushed himself up on one elbow, hovering over her slightly as she racked her mind for whatever it might have been. That was when it hit her like a knife to the stomach that twisted and yanked, that was when it came back to her. "Oh, God," she said, and this time when the water came she could not stop it. "Oh, God, George…"

He sucked in a breath of recognition, started to reach for her, and she pushed him away, forcing herself to sit up in the darkness, to realize the moment. At first she tried to brush the tears back with her hand but then she gave and dropped her head into her hands, the sickness that had followed her for weeks after coming back to her in some obscene tide. The other feelings came after that – the shock, the fear, the doubt, until her pulse beat against her brain and every short breath felt as if it were being wrenched out of her. She took a long moment and cried until her eyes stung and she raised them to the ceiling, as if to ask why.

After a long moment, his voice quiet with the sympathy, he said, "Mason?"

She couldn't meet his eyes when she forced herself to nod. Counting back the time in her head was easy enough, the wound like yesterday, and they both knew it. No matter how little love there had been between the man beside her and the one in her head, both of them had been important, and now one of them was gone. There was no getting over that, not permanently, not really. Not with all the reminders, all the memories, all the things said and done that she could still quote. She could still expect him to walk in the door any moment and apologize for being stuck in a meeting. He haunted her, he truly did, but she expected nothing less. She expected this.

"He would have been 45 tomorrow."

At first he didn't know what to say. "He was a good man."

"I know." 

This time he touched her and felt her hands shaking. He closed his fingers around hers firmly, hoping to stop the nervous reaction that simply had to run its course. "Do you want to talk about it?" he offered.

She shook her head slowly. She had talked about it, to him and to her assistant and to Chappelle and the hearing boards that had been convened. The time for talking about it was over now. The silence lapsed between them until she said, "I think … I think I'm just going to sit here for a while."

"All right." 

"I mean, I may not say anything for a while…"

"Liz." He shifted again, pulling himself to sit up next to her until he was level with her, could see the sadness and the regret mirrored in her eyes. He knew that look. She'd had it two and a half years ago when they'd buried his wife, when they'd buried her subordinate, when they'd buried his mentor and all the others. It was the look of futile persistence and yet, quiet defenestration. "It's okay."

"I'm fine, Jack."

"I know. And I'm right here."

"I know."

The clock on the nightstand turned over from 10:59 to 11:00 before she spoke again, her voice a barely audible vow as he held on to her in the silence, studying her agony. It would happen the way it had happened before and would always happen after. They would always go back.

The dawning of the day brought with it the long walk, not the first and not the last. They had gone there on the anniversary of the day of his death, and this now on the day of his birth. Two days for a man who had made the last sacrifice so that they could continue on never seemed like enough, but it was all they had now that they were without him. She wore black out of some feeling of obligation, the ring he'd given her before his death still on her finger as it had always been since that day. She couldn't look at it without thinking of him. Sometimes, she couldn't look at the man she loved without thinking of the one she'd lost.

It was barely bright outside, five in the morning or so, when they made it to the cemetery. It was silent now, standing empty. Other men and women who'd known him would come and go after they had gone. Tony Almeida and Michelle Dessler probably would take a moment of their time. Strangely, Ryan Chappelle had been at the funeral. Maybe his son or his ex-wife would remember. But Liz was always the first. It was some unspoken rule that she, being the protégé of the man who'd fallen, being the woman he had come to hold so dear when things had fallen so far, got to be the first one to close the space between.

She set her jaw as she climbed out of the car. No flowers – he wouldn't have cared for them. No candles – it was going to rain that day. Just her, a year older, an extra wound upon her soul for him. Jack circled around and took her by the hand as they walked across the grass, among the other markers of lives closed, without anything to say. All the words had never been enough. The ring, which had always reminded her of Mason's intense eyes, caught a brief glint in the sunlight, and it only made her resolve stronger. His life had been so unfairly wasted that she would make sure whatever she could save of it would go on with her. Wherever he was, he would always have her waiting for him, even if she knew he was never coming back.

They arrived at his headstone and she stood over it for a moment, running her fingers across the cold marble at its top, suddenly choked up, forcing herself to swallow. Forcing herself to replace desires for a future she'd never have and resurrection she couldn't perform with memories of conversations that had changed her life and interludes that had humbled her in the face of the worst fate could have ever dealt her. Or, the worst up until the moment they'd torn him from her universe.

_-Look at me now  
Never thought I'd be here  
What was I thinking?_

_What have I left undone, unspoken?-_

She knelt on the earth that held him, seeing eye to eye with the few words that he had left behind. She knew them by heart, had helped pick them out with his son when it had all happened. _"George Mason," _she repeated softly to herself. _"Beloved husband, father, and hero. Gave his life to save our own. Even in death, our love goes on."_

"He would have liked it," Jack said quietly behind her, his hand on her shoulder.

Liz glanced over at him. "You really think so? It could have been too…"

"No, he would have appreciated it." He smiled thinly, just the barest hint of reassurance. "He would have liked to be missed."

She nodded, turning away again. "He is missed," she said, averting her gaze.

Just the year before, it had all been so much more different, so much simpler. Not that it had been perfect – he still wasn't speaking to his ex-wife, and not so much as a phone call from his son – but it had been a good day for Mason. Liz had bought him a present, a particular book he'd been looking for, and she had given it to him in his office. He'd smiled, joked that he hadn't thought anyone would remember, but the admiration had been in his eyes. She'd smiled and said that he underestimated people, and he had smiled back and said that she had proven that point already. They'd thought nothing of it then, but now it meant everything.

_  
-Look at me, I feel a little helpless   
And look at you there  
Looking down at me  
It wasn't meant to happen like this  
I need more time to set things right  
Not ready to think these things in the middle of the night-_

"George, it's me," she finally said after a moment, and then, answering the quip she knew would have been in the space, "No, I don't have anything better to do right now, and you know it." Ignoring Jack's dry chuckle behind her – which sounded a lot like the way Mason would have responded, minus the wry smirk – she took a long breath. Somehow, every time she'd ever talked to him, she'd had to take a second and figure it out first. She couldn't just talk to him the way she talked to everyone else. He was different that way, a man apart, and now, a man who'd gotten lost – or maybe found – along the way.

"Anyway, I now understand why you hate your job, but I'm doing it – yes, I actually am doing it – and I hope you'd be proud of me. Rebecca left after you died. They've gotten me another assistant, David. He's a good man, in fact, vaguely reminds me of you." She chuckled bitterly. She'd never told David how hard it had been, initially, when some of the younger man's mannerisms or word choices or jokes would bring up Mason, and she would have to fight herself not to break down and cry in front of him. "Alberta mostly stays out of my way, and Chappelle … you won't believe this, the bastard actually gave me condolences that weren't backhanded." 

In fact, the reaction to Mason's death had been surprising. People she and the former District Director had considered enemies had actually turned out to remember him. His ex-wife, his son, his arch-nemesis, some of his co-workers. The majority of the CTU Los Angeles team had been there. Chappelle had given a short speech that seemed like he had actually written it himself. Liz had been asked by John Mason – who was doing much of the preparation since his mother and father hadn't seen each other in years – to give the eulogy, and had done her damnedest, thinking she was going to fall apart doing it. Only Jack's level gaze and his own speech about those last moments of Mason's life had kept her from coming undone in front of the whole assemblage. 

But wasn't she supposed to come undone? This was one of the two most important men in her entire life that she was mourning. He had helped her through so much, taught her so many things, and somewhere inside he had revealed himself as a hero and a brilliant man, no matter what anyone else thought of him. Imagining the somber-hopeful glances he used to give her, as if he were looking up to her in his search for redemption, made her choke out a sob in the stillness, and when she closed her eyes, it didn't go away. Truth be told, it would be worse for Liz if these demons did die, because then there would be nothing left. It would be the death of her, the day he was just a memory.

_  
-Life seems never ending, until it's ending  
Finite, sight unseen - we choose the path we walk  
But is it meant to happen like this?  
Do we need more time to set things right?  
Are we ever prepared inside to say goodbye?-_

"You remember that conversation we had earlier in that day? When I caught you in the hallway trying to run out on us?" Ordinarily, were he alive, she would have said those last few words with a wry disappointment, but now she just chuckled under her breath, remembering when she had tracked him down. Maybe it had been her upfront words that had made him change his mind that day, but she'd never know if that were the case. She liked to think she had simply helped him reach what he was already starting to find.

Liz had been coming back from Data Services and run into Mason. When she'd looked into his eyes, it wasn't the George Mason she knew looking back at her. This Mason was full of the shielding he'd put up years ago to protect himself, the very walls she'd tried to tear down. Beyond them, though, she saw a weakness and a fear and a sick realization. The realization that he couldn't save anyone's lives when it counted, at least he didn't think so, and the wound that made inside of him.  
  
"George, where are you going?"  
  
"Bakersfield."  
  
"We need you here."  
  
"No, you don't."  
  
"Fine, *I* need you here." No shame in admitting it; he knew it, she knew it, the whole world pretended not to but knew it. It was no secret, this alliance of theirs, especially on that day when Jack, who now stood somber beside her – no doubt lost in his own feelings from the day – had turned his back on her, broken her down. Not Mason. For whatever his reasons, Mason had always been there.  
  
Mason's resolve had been cut from under him, however, and he'd spoken with the hollow words of a lost man. "You've got Tony. I don't know how you saved him from putting a bullet in his skull, but you did. The way you two look at each other is..." The pause had been painful. "It's the way he used to look at Nina. Back when we all trusted her. When he loved her."  
  
And then he had faced her, those eyes looking into her with so much pain. If she hadn't been trying to tough-love him out of running, she might have reached for him, tried to take it from him, even if she never could. "You will never be Nina. You won't ever hurt him like she did. And I can never be Jack. I can't do this."

"That's where you were wrong, George," she said now, able to see her breath steam in the air. "Maybe I didn't hurt Tony, but you're just as good as Jack and I and the rest of us. You were one of us, George, even if you didn't think so. Don't short-change yourself, don't forget that. Lord knows we don't forget it."

"What were the odds," she continued, "of all the crazy, stupid things Jack and I and Tony and everyone else had done, that you would be the one?"

_  
-Look at you now  
I never thought I'd see you here  
How did I outlive you  
I couldn't see us apart, us broken-_

She cast her eyes skyward for a moment, as if he were watching her go on about him from whatever afterlife might exist, probably with an amused yet touched look on his face. He always had that attitude about him. The way he hid everything under that sardonic humor could be both disarmingly charming and annoying, but underneath that there was a wounded soul, a contemplative man who made – had made – his presence not known often enough. She missed both those men – the one that could make her laugh when she wanted to punch something and the one that made her realize there was a point in the face of it all. 

That had been his gift to her, then: a realization of what she was doing there, when she had wanted to walk away like he had tried. A chance, after almost repeating his ways, to take control of that life, and make something better of it. He'd always wanted something better, something more, something true. 

"We're going to make something of it, George," she said to him then, as she'd said to him all those times before. "It'll eventually come to something you would have wanted. Even if I have to brain Chappelle with a two-by-four."

They all chuckled then, she and Jack and she imagined Mason, at that image. Lord knew they had all thought about that action more than once, especially Mason. It had been a private joke that Mason's last act would be beating his boss to death in blind rage. It hadn't turned out that way. His last act had been something much higher, something that had shown Chappelle up more than any beating, something truly immortal. It was a shame that to make a lasting mark, he had been forced to not last as long as she knew he was capable of. He would have found the irony in that amusing.

"I miss you," she said, finally. "It's still your job, your office, your life. Eventually I'll get used to it but it'll still be me in your life. I keep expecting you to walk in the door and take it all back. Not that I regret it, but … I regret what you had to do to give it to me. At the same time, I know it was better this way for you … you got what you wanted."

She pushed herself up from the ground then, stood there for another moment. Somehow, she never knew how to end these dialogues. Everything always seemed flat and somehow incomplete. There was a wicked, burning irony in that as well. All she could do was walk away and try to find the truth in the rest of the day, so she could sleep this night like she had not the night before.

_  
-"The quality of your pain," you said "is deep inside your heart"  
It wasn't meant to happen like this  
I need more time to make things right  
Not ready to think these thoughts in the middle of the night-_

"We should go," Liz told Jack after a moment. "I stay here long enough, I'm going to be screwed up in the head the rest of the day, and David will have a coronary."

He nodded. "We've both got work to do," he said, accepting her hand as the two of them turned back. "Taylor really worries that much about you?"

"Yeah, he's…" She paused. "He's like George like that."

Jack glanced over at her, "You going to be all right today?"

"Probably not, Jack. But what choice do I have?"

"We always have a choice."

"Yeah, but I want to keep working. George would want me to. He had a choice, too, you know." She stared at the clouds above their heads. "He made the right one for him. I'm still working on mine."

Jack chuckled under his breath at her. "You were right all along about him."

"I wasn't right. I didn't guess." She stared back at him, sighing. "I just saw whatever he chose to show me. Maybe a little bit more, but mostly, whatever he chose to show me."

They walked on in silence after that.

_  
-Is this right, that this really is the end?   
It wasn't meant to happen like this  
I need more time to set things right  
And angels come in many guises to guide us-_

Jack closed Liz's door behind her and circled round to his side of the car. He hesitated before he put his keys in the ignition, and she caught the motion. "What?" she said.

He leaned back in the seat for a moment. "The way he talked about you then … the way he felt about you … it made me feel like I'd been short-changing him as a cold, heartless bastard all these years. I mean, how many times did you tell me he wasn't like that, and I never listened."

"A lot of people didn't, Jack." She paused. "But it was supposed to be that way."

"Was it, Liz?" he said, unconvinced.

Looking past him back across the cemetery lawn, she found within herself the strength to nod. "Yeah. Because George wasn't about attention and recognition. He was doing things too important to show the world." As she spoke the words she felt her heart pause. "He only wanted two things. Love and redemption. And he found them both."


End file.
